Team Quad

by John Naegle

The race is three stages over three nights: A rolling 6.5 mile TT
with one moderate uphill, an 8.8 mile circuit that uses a lot of the
TT course, with a similar profile, and a points race on the Star
Speedway in Epping, NH. The General Classification is scored on
points over the three nights. First on a stage gets 100 points, 2nd
95, 3rd 91 and so on. The person who accumulates the most points over
three nights wins. The races start around 6:00 in the evening, but
we’re required to sign in or pick up numbers by 5:30 which translated
into 3:30 departures from Boston to beat traffic on 93 North. Not a
big deal, but it made for long days.

I did this race 2 years ago right after my upgrade to category 4 and
was solid middle of the pack fodder. This year, I hoped to do much
better. I’d been looking forward to this race when I ended up taking
a couple of weeks off the bike in June and realized that with my
training plan, I’d actually be in better shape for this race than
Fitchburg. The TT was a little bit of an unknown, since I’ve only
done 3 or 4 TTs this year, Charlie Baker a few times and the Fitchburg
TT where I flatted. I hoped to do well to set myself for the overall.
I felt really confident about the road race and I had a personal goal
to win it. I wasn’t sure what to hope for in the points race. 2
years ago, I didn’t get any points, so I was just hoping to top that,
but without teammates, it could be a really hard race.

Time Trial

When Ian saw I was signed up for this race, he offered to let me
borrow his nice deep dish carbon race wheels. Ian’s girlfriend,
Christine, had the wheels and started her race around 6:05. I started
at 6:40, so there would be plenty of time to switch the cassette
before my start. I laid out the cassette tools by my trainer and
settled in for a good warm-up. I expected to do the course in about
15 minutes based on last year’s times. The shorter the race, the more
important the warm-up so I hit the trainer shortly after the 5:45
riders meeting. Christine finished up and I changed the cassette from
9sp to 10sp and took the wheels for a lap around the parking lot. I’d
never been on a high end wheel before — they felt amazing – I’m sure
they saved me more than 10 seconds on the course. For the TT itself,
there isn’t much to report. I finally did a good job pacing myself -
I split the course into thirds and went a little harder on each third.
I caught my 30 second guy in the first two miles and my 60 and 90
second riders after about 5.5 miles. I finished in 14:56:00, 4th
place (88 points) and 13 seconds behind Jordan Winkler (100 points)
from Cambridge who won the Fitchburg TT. I may have been able to do
a little better by pre-riding the course – there were a number of
sharp turns that I could have gone through faster. But, 10 seconds
slower would have put me in 7th; I owe Ian a few beers for letting me
borrow those wheels.

Circuit Race

We did 4 laps of the 8.8 mile circuit. I felt really good going into
the race. I did a little warm-up on the trainer, stretched, sat
through the riders meeting, and did another 10 minutes on the trainer
before the start. 42 of us rolled out with the usual set of
instructions: don’t cross the yellow line, don’t throw trash, etc,
etc. As I mentioned, I felt really good about my chances in this
race, and with 4th in the TT, I had aspirations of doing well for a
good GC position. The race was pretty typical for the 4s: a few solo
efforts of the front and everything coming back together on the last
lap. On our second lap, we rolled came upon an ambulance and some
police officers at the scene of a crash from the Women’s 3/4 race.
Unfortunately, Kate Leppanen was down in the crash and on her way to
the hospital with a broken clavicle. Seeing the crash put a big
damper on the race. Please wish Kate a speedy recovery.

The last 1.5 miles of the course includes the KOM sprint, a fast
downhill and slight uphill into a 90 degree corner about 400 meters
before the finish. We’d have the whole road after the corner, so a
few lines would be possible through there. I ended up on the front of
the race into the KOM and rode the yellow line to prevent people
coming by me where I couldn’t see them. I think this helped to slow
the pace down a little bit and nobody seemed to be too interested in
punching it up the hill. Jordan Winkler attacked the KOM and took off
down the decent first. I jumped hard at the top of the hill to get up
to speed as quickly as possible and got on Jordan’s wheel. Things
came back together and slowed down on the slight uphill and I took
position at the yellow line again to control being swarmed. This was
probably a mistake as it put me in the wind for too long and at the
front of the race for the last corner. I went into the corner 2nd and
came out 1st, but it was too far to sprint. I tried to go a little
easier and get ready for the swarm/jump that was certain to come. I
had picked out a crosswalk about 200 meters out to sprint from, but
people started jumping far earlier. I tried to jump also, but instead
of letting some riders come by, getting on their wheel, then jumping
from my pre-determined point, I got excited and tried to stay in front
of everybody. It was a bonehead move and I ended up in 11th. I
definitely had the legs for a better finish, but the strategy needed
work.

Points Race

I was really disappointed with my Circuit Race result and was sure
that it had wiped out my GC aspirations. I planned to skip the points
race and spend the evening relaxing instead. It wasn’t until after I
rode to work (I worked from home the other days) that I saw the
results from the previous night: 11th in the circuit race and tied for
2nd on GC. My wife, Kristen, convinced me that I would regret not
doing the points race. She was nice enough to grab my bike and pick
me up at work so I could race. We got up there early so Kristen could
watch the Women’s race. I grabbed some food and waited for my race to
start.

I didn’t have a great strategy going into the race – I wasn’t sure of
my legs, they were very tired, so I was going to see how they felt and
contest as many sprints as possible and hope to hang on. If I’d had a
team mate, it could have been a completely different race for me. We
could have worked together to lead out the sprint. As it was, my best
chance was to stay near the front and look for wheels to follow for
the sprint. The first sprint came very quickly, each lap was under 40
seconds I think and I was close to the front when the Cambridge
Bicycle Train formed for the first time. They did a beautiful job
leading out the race leader for the sprints — they were the only team
that was experienced on the track and organized as a team. I looked
for their train time and time again and did my best to find the
leader’s wheel and hope to come around him in the sprint. I picked up
quite a few points by sticking to their wheels.

The race was hard and fast – I don’t remember much, but a few things
stick out. The Cambridge team did a great job working for the race
leader; they dominated the race. On the double points sprint at the
half way point, my rear wheel skipped out on the last corner (the
track was not particularly smooth) and while I was in great position,
I sat up. I should have jumped back in as I was in good position
still. With 15 laps to go, I was seeing stars and was concerned about
not being able to finish the race, but I ended up behind the rider who
I started the day tied with and found some motivation for the last two
sprints where I took 6 points total. I contested 9 of the 16 sprints
and took points in 8 of them: 2nd, 3rd, 1st, 4th, 2nd, 4th, 3rd and
3rd (double points). I was pretty sure after the race that I had
taken 2nd in the race and 2nd over all, but with the 2/3 race starting
right after ours, it took the officials a while to get the results
posted. After 45 minutes of waiting, results were posted and I took
2nd in the race with 21 points. Jordan from Cambridge was first with
30 and Calder Daenzer from Cal Cycling was 3rd with 17 points. I’d
defended 2nd on GC, but just barely.

Final Results:
Jordan Winkler: 295 points
John Naegle: 257
Calder Daenzer: 252

This was the hardest race I’ve ever done and will be taking a planned
break for mountain biking, track racing and riding without the
pressure of racing.

by John Naegle

ITT

I’d been looking forward to the ITT for a long time; my goal was to go
under 20 minutes and set myself up for a top 20 overall on GC. Last
year, I clocked 20:38 with a dropped chain, so I felt like this was a
realistic goal. I was riding the same equipment as last year: clip on
aero bars, rudy project aero helment, and 53/39 chainring paired with
a 12-27 cassette. I pre-drove the course and decided to make liberal
use of my 39 this year. Last year I tried to ride the whole course in
the big chainring but couldn’t handle the steep kick at around 4.5
miles.

I got a good 30-40 minute warm up on the trainer finishing up about 10
minutes before my start. I took a little too much time getting out of
the parking lot for the mile+ ride to the start line and rolled up to
the start line 40 seconds before my start. This worked out well as I
didn’t have time to think about the race and get my nerves up.

Since this year I had a good idea of what my time would be, I set the
count down timer on my watch to 6 minutes and 30 seconds. I recently
used the counter at Charlie Baker to divide the course into 3 sections
with the goal of going harder as the race progressed. Ideally, the
first section would be done a little easier, the middle a little
harder and the last all out. I started my watch and counter when my
30 second man started, got my hold and clipped in on the start ramp.

I started out a little too hard, but realized it pretty quickly and
settled into a good rhythm. I caught my 30 second man after about 2-3
kilometers and had a glimpse of the next two riders up the road. With
a little over 5 kilometers to go, my hopes of a good TT time and good
overall GC position came to an end as I got a rear flat. I ended up
riding the rim for the last 5+ kilometers and came in fourth to last
(123rd) with a 23:07:30 (the last place rider missed his start).

Road Race

Thursday’s ITT disaster changed my plans for the road race.
Originally, I had planned to sit in, conserve and go all out up the
final climb. I’m not a great climber — I wouldn’t have a chance at
top 10 – but I wanted to see how I had improved from last year and
compare myself to the rest of the cat 4 field.

Since I was already 4+ minutes down on GC I decided to try and see if
I could get some KOM points. I chatted with Jason Sears from MIT who
was 2nd in last years points competition in the cat 3 race. He had
been in a 6 person breakaway in the road race that swept up a lot of
the KOM points and set him up well for the points competition. That
breakaway had gone on the first lap, right after the first corner so I
thought I would try to instigate something similar. On the first lap
I put in 4 separate attacks, each of which came to naught – no other
teams were feeling aggressive and my last attack ended about 7 miles
into the first lap – right before the long grind into Princeton.

The rest of the race was about survival for me. Despite sag climbing
on the first lap, I almost got dropped from the group and had to chase
back on after the feed zone. The second lap felt better, but I still
questioned why I was doing this and thought that it might not be so
bad to stop. By the third lap, I was well recovered and able to stay
near the front on the climbs. The fourth time through Princeton, my
legs were screaming, but I wasn’t loosing position. I came to the
start of the final climb in about 20th position, but I didn’t have
legs for anything. I ended up 66th on the day, about 2 minutes down.

Thanks to Ken Han and Bill Maidment for organizing the feed zone and
keeping up hydrated during the race.

Circuit Race

With the Circuit Race coming after the road race this year, I wondered
if people would be more aggressive in attacking up the hill and trying
to establish breakaways. The course doesn’t lend itself well to small
breaks — a 300 meter uphill sprint, followed by 3 miles of fast non-
technical downhill makes it very tough for small groups to stay away.

I got a decent warm up – 20 or 30 minutes on the trainer before the
start and felt pretty relaxed. Knowing that nothing was likely to
stay away, I planned to sit in, stay out of the wind and do as little
work as possible until the last two laps. I started mid-pack and
didn’t make an effort to move up on the first lap. My legs felt
pretty heavy the first time up the hill.

The uphill is really two sections – a short section right after a fast
90-degree corner, followed by a flat section, then another kick up. I
settled into a pretty good rhythm: take the corner wide, ride the
first section in the big ring, shift into the small ring for the
second section, then back to the big ring at the top of the hill. My
legs felt better each lap, but the race was very nervous. There were a
few crashes, some bumping, some bunny hopping of pot holes (!?!?) and
a fast pace (average speed: 26 mph).

With 2 to go, I made an effort to move up from my mid-pack position
towards the front. This was a tough position to hold as every time on
the downhill, people would swarm up the outside. On the downhill,
Toby and I had a quick chat and he would try to lead me out for the
finish. A traffic island split the 4-lane road about 1 mile (less
than 2 minutes from the finish) and Toby and I decided we would try to
go left while the pack mostly went to the right.

On the last lap, Toby and I were able to find each other and go left
of the traffic island as planned, but we couldn’t really get to the
front of the race. It was too fast for a two person train to drill
the pace and stay at the front for the finish, so we ended up coming
through the last corner in around 25th to 30th position. We punched
it up the hill and Toby took 9th while I ended up in 16th. If we had
been in better position going into the final corner I think we would
have ended up even higher, we both passed a lot of people in the
sprint.

Criterium

I think people either love Crits or hate them. I love them and I’d
been looking forward to this race all year. I got another decent warm
up and lined up on the sidewalk as the category 2 race finished up.
While we were waiting for the 30+ people involved in a last lap pile
up to limp across the line, I chatted with the leader of the race and
found out he was a mountain biker and not a fan of criteriums. I got
the impression it was his first criterium, but I later found out he
has done a few before — only at stage races. Due to the sheer number
of racers, this is not a good course for nervous riders or a lack of
confidence. We had 105 starters, only 3 fewer than the Pro race, but
only about 50% of the bike handling skills.

We did 20 laps for around 22 miles. I got a 4th or 5th row starting
position in the race to the line. My plan for this race was relax,
stay near the front where there is less braking in the corners and put
myself at the front (top 10) with 6 laps to go and stay there.
Hopefully between Toby, Ian and I, we would have some sort of lead out
for the finish. The race was very sketchy – lots of crashes, lots of
bumping, lots of abrupt line changes. For instance, two people rolled
off the front on the downhill and one of them ended up crashing on a
straightaway. If we went through the two 90-degree corners with 20
people, there would be 25 different lines taken through the corners.
For the first 14 laps, I just tried to stay out of trouble, stay away
from riders who looked unforgettable or braked too much. It was tough
to settle into any sort of rhythm with the nervous, twitchy bunch, but
I found I could pretty easily move up at the 180 at the top of the
course by shifting earlier and peddling earlier than everyone else.

With 6 to go, I put myself at the front of the race. From here on, I
just tried to stay at the front, watching for people swarming and
jumping on their wheels as they did. I was sitting in 6th to 10th
wheel on the outside with about 1/2 mile to go when Toby found me and
offered a lead out. I slowed slightly to let him move in front and
got on his wheel. Toby drilled it on the downhill into the two
corners and when I looked back, we had put a slight gap into the
field. Toby took me though the last two corners, but I ended up
taking the second corner on a slightly different line and ended up
first with 250 to go. This was basically a repeat of last year when
I led Eric through the final two corners and to about 250 meters to
go. That proved to be a little far for a lead out as Eric got swarmed
in the finish and ended up 11th. I started my sprint early and stayed
at the side of the road, so anybody passing me would have to come by
on the left. I got passed with about 75 meters to go and ended up 8th
– a good result that wouldn’t have been possible without being in the
top 10 through the last corner. Despite doing a huge pull and leading
me for a good 400 meters, Toby drove it home and ended up 12th.

Lessons Learned:

* Get your tires in order well before the race. Due to a wheel
failure, I ended up racing different wheels than planned. I had to
change my rear tire 3 days before my TT and I only had a chance to
ride this once for about 30 minutes. I feel like it was a contributing
factor to my flat.
* Two person lead out trains are really hard to time correctly.
* Category 4 fields are very passive. Don’t expect people to attack
and establish breakaways.
* Category 4 fields tend to attack off the front. Its hard to attack
effectively off the front – its much better to sit 20 riders back, and
pass the front of the field at high speed, rather than trying to jump
off the front. Jumping off the front just ups the pace for the whole
group.
* Mountain bikers do very well in the cat4 race at Fitchburg (last two
winners were semi-pro/expert level racers).

by Thomas Scotto

Big congrats to the Cat 4 team of Josh Preneta, Eric Silva and Michael McKittrick!  They worked well together at this week’s Workingman’s Stage Race (which is rare for a cat 4 field) and kept Josh in the top ten.  Josh ended the last stage with 7th on GC.  I got to watch them work together during the points race last night on the Star Speedway in Epping, NH.  I saw the Quad 3-man train formed a few times at the front during the 80-laps.  NICE!!!
 
I personally didn’t have the juice for the last 3 days for whatever reason.  I have a bunch of excuses, but won’t bore you with excessive details.  Blah. Blah. Blah.  I will however make a comment about last nights points race (not about me): it was one of the worst races I have been in a long while with an abundance of BAD bike handling skills.  It was to the point where Dick Ring appeared visibly upset.  His comment was…“these guys are Cat 2’s and 3’s…who’s teaching they guys bike handling skills”.  Within 15 minutes of racing there were 2 bad crashes during which the race had to be neutralized.  I had one particular rider snub my front wheel 3 different times while changing his line seemingly without cause (see Side Note).  Then a rider decided that he didn’t want to race anymore (or whatever) and went from the pole (inside of the track) straight up the track to the entrance gate.  WHAT DA….  Out of my mouth came “hey buddy, I’m on your right”, but in my head, much stronger language was erupting.  I came almost to a complete stop and then had to chase the field which was just given a bell lap.  The writing was on the wall and the blood on the track.
 
SIDE NOTE:  I spoke to 3 of the guys who were involved in both crashes and pretty banged up (not the guy taken away in an ambulance).  They said both their crashes were caused by very poor riding from “one particular team”.  It so happened that “this” team was the same as that of the ride who kept changing his line in front of me.  There was a small group of about 4 to 5 of us talking and then more people joined in complaining about “this” team (I know…come on Tom tell us who it is).  This was disappointing, because I don’t like to hear good teams talked about in that fashion.  Well for matter of decency and because I truly like “this” team, I will only post the team name on the team site in the secured area where members can access (and search engines can not).  You’ll just have to wait.
 
CLARIFICATION: A number of people thought I witnessed the cause of the 2 crashes which I did not.  I did hear all sorts of banter, but would not be able to distinguish what was real and what was emotional.
 
Well, I’m done.  Hope to see a few of you on the road soon.  I’ll be recovering.